Leg to Hand

It doesn't matter how many times I write those words, I still find days where they mean something even more than the day before. I am either the world's slowest learner, or the idea of leg to hand is just as complicated as the words half halt. I am going with the latter.

I promise he's not really this grouchy.

I haven't had a lot to say about Izzy over the past few weeks. We've been working, but we seem to have hit a new stage in our working relationship. On the ground, he is in my pocket, sometimes literally. Under saddle, we're dealing with something old that feels like something new.

He finally has some length to his stride and his back is moving, but he is now locked onto that bit like he thinks it's actually going to hold him up. Dude, you're 1,350 pounds to my 124 - ain't no way I am holding you up! The other thing I am wrestling with is his wayward right shoulder which is actually great since that's the same issue I have with Speedy. I now get to work on it ALL. THE. TIME.

Post-ride sweat. It was in the mid-80s yesterday.

For so long, my rides were about getting Izzy to let go over his top line so that he could stretch down. Once that was mostly happening, I was able to ask for a bigger stride. I recently realized that we're now past stretching forward and downward as the primary goal. The emphasis now needs to be on suppleness from his jaw to his poll to his withers. That's the old that feels like something new.

He was TIRED!

While last night's ride started out as frustrating, I quickly changed my goal from encouraging strictly relaxation (there has to be some relaxation after all) to being supple in his neck. I wanted to be able to get right or left flexion whenever I wanted it. It took nearly an hour, but he started to give it to me.

The difficulty is that he wants to be spooky which means strong reins on my part to keep him from veering off - usually to the right. I also had to use the whip to make my leg aid loud enough for him to hear. Eventually, I brought everything back down to a walk so that I could control the forward while insisting with my leg/whip that he step OVER.

Wet saddle pads fix almost everything.

After he realized that spooking in the same corner that he's passed through a bazillion times wasn't getting him anything but the leg/whip combo, I was able to get some interesting work done. Essentially, I bent him to the inside to put him on the outside rein, and then I added leg to send him forward and sideways, first in leg yield then in half pass all while changing the bend. Leg to hand. Leg to hand. Leg to hand.

He never makes things easy, but for a thinking rider, he'll give you plenty of puzzles to solve. I just put one more piece in the puzzle.